1. Field of the Invention
The disclosure presented herein relates to a method of forming ink patterns and an apparatus for printing ink patterns, and more particularly, a method and an apparatus capable of reducing the amount of ink that is thrown away while enhancing the printing and positional precision of ink patterns on a member to be printed.
2. Description of the Related Art
As semiconductor devices, display devices, and other electronic devices are increasingly required to become lighter, smaller, and more highly integrated, micro-patterns such as wiring and insulating films are becoming more important. Therefore, the ability to form precise micro-patterns at the lowest possible cost is becoming the core of today's technological power. In particular, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), which are one of the most widely used types of flat panel displays, require wiring patterns, color filter patterns, spacer patterns, and the like therein to be precise micro-patterns. Accordingly, various methods of forming patterns are being researched.
A conventional photolithography process, which has been widely used in the semiconductor field, is being employed to form wiring patterns in an LCD. However, it is difficult to form precise patterns using the photolithography process due to the possibility of over-etching by an etchant or an etching gas. In addition, since the photolithography process involves complicated operations, manufacturing time and costs are increased. To address these disadvantages of the photolithography process, methods of forming patterns using an apparatus for printing ink patterns are being researched.
In a conventional method of forming micro-patterns, an ink layer is formed on the entire surface of a blanket cylinder by using slit coating. Then, the blanket cylinder is closely attached to a printing member having concave portions that are formed by engraving a shape of ink patterns to be printed on a member, on the printing member. When the blanket cylinder is closely attached to the printing member, ink on portions of the blanket cylinder that contact convex portions of the printing member is removed from the blanket cylinder. Finally, ink remaining on the blanket cylinder is printed on the member to form final ink patterns. However, when micro-patterns are formed using this method a large amount of ink is thrown away, resulting in a large loss in terms of material cost.